Kingdom Hearts IV
by tmb1112
Summary: Sora goes on one final mission by himself to save Kairi after they defeated the 13 Xehanorts, but though he saved her he lost himself in the process. Sora wakes up at the edge of life and death with little recollection of who he is, an ominous warning from a one eyed man, and only the faint memory of a girl and a promise holding him together.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1:**

A bright yellow light flashed in a blue sky full of clouds. The empty Final World illuminated in the golden glow as Sora curled his fingers in around the girl appearing out of thin air in front of him. His own fingers were translucent as the girl's body came to form in his hands, his fingers pressing into her back so he finally felt the feeling of her skin touching his hands.

Sora held the girl in his arms tighter and he rose a hand up her back to her head that he pulled over his shoulder while bowing his own head next to hers. "You found me," Sora heard whispered in his ear, and two soft hands wrapped around his back too. "I knew you would," Kairi pulled her head back and looked up into Sora's eyes with a bright smile on her face, tears in the corners of her eyes and a small laugh escaping her lips.

"Always," Sora said, and he smiled right back at her in a much bigger way. He kept his hands on her back though even when he leaned his head back to look down at hers. His hands tightened and he did not want to let her go, and Kairi got a bigger smile on her own face before spinning to the right while Sora spun left.

The two of them turned in the huge expanse of the Final World and looked towards a bright white light that appeared before them. "Let's go," Kairi said, pulling back from Sora a bit while sliding one hand down his back to his right hand. "I'm sure the others are all-"

"Kairi wai-" Sora wanted to say it quicker, but Kairi stumbled forward fast as her fingers slipped out of Sora's grasp. Kairi stumbled a couple of steps and then turned her head back, and she looked at Sora's hand outstretched for her. Her eyes widened while she and Sora both stared at his hand, a hand that was getting more transparent by the second.

Kairi realized as she looked at the hand that Sora had not let go of her hand at all, but her fingers had really just slipped through his. "Sora?" Kairi rose her head back up and looked into Sora's eyes. Her expression was shaken and she did not know what she was seeing as he looked back at her in that, way.

"Kairi I-" Sora began, and he froze when Kairi's lips pursed and her eyes grew even bigger in fear. Sora's legs started moving forward, his whole body straining as he pulled his way back towards her.

Kairi started back the other way, right as the white light grew larger in the sides of her vision and started moving around her. "You're coming with me!" Kairi shouted, and she reached her hand back for Sora's as he extended his towards her. She grabbed at his hand, then she reached both hands out and grabbed onto it, clasping hold as tightly as she could so he would not fade through her. "You have to!"

"Kairi, it's okay," Kairi's hands met together as Sora's hand was no longer between them at all, his arm fading from his wrist to his elbow and then slowly up to his shoulder. Sora stepped towards her without as much frustration, without straining as hard… though there was not much of a step since his right leg he moved first was disappearing as he moved it. "The light will get you home," Sora moved closer to Kairi while the white light was enveloping both of them, and while Sora's body was pulling back as a mist behind him out into the Final World that Kairi swore suddenly looked darker anywhere that there wasn't the bright light.

"It won't be home," Kairi said, tears filling her eyes at the resigned look on Sora's face. She reached her hands out and tried to grab at Sora's body, but her hands went straight through him even as he got right in front of her. "Not without you," Kairi whispered when Sora had his semi-translucent face right in front of hers. "I'll come find you," Kairi promised, getting a stronger look on her face now. The light was getting so bright around her, but she leaned closer to Sora and called out, "No matter where you go-"

"Not this time," Sora said. His voice was softer, and Kairi felt a soft touch on the side of her face as some light shifted there almost in the shape of a hand. "Even though I'll be gone though," he continued, and he smiled more at the girl in front of him while a different light glowed back behind Sora in what Kairi had thought had been so dark. "I'll always be with you." Kairi looked back into Sora's eyes, and she felt her heart start to glow and feel warm.

"In my heart," Kairi whispered back, even as more tears streamed down the sides of her face. The boy who had come so far to get her back, he was disappearing right before her eyes. His face started to disappear too, and she reached her arms out for him. She threw her arms around his head and pulled him closer to her as she felt him actually present in her hold. His head's shape was nearly gone, but Kairi pulled it closer to hers and whispered when they were an inch apart, "I love you, Sora."

The light pulsed around them and flashed so bright, but Kairi's eyes were already closed. They closed a moment earlier when her lips pushed forward, but then the pressure back on her own lips faded as her arms slipped through the air she was holding and pulled back to her own body. Kairi clenched her eyes shut harder in the flash and her arms tightened the hug around her own body, more tears pushing out of her clenched eyelids even as her lips lifted up into a smile. They rose up because of the voice she heard that could have been part of her own imagination as distant and faint it sounded. She was sure she heard it though, and she knew it was no trick of the mind.

"I love you, Kairi."

sc

_"I'll come back to you, I promise!"_

Sora was tired. He was so tired that his eyelids felt too heavy to lift. He frowned though. His lips curled down and he became restless at his own voice he heard echo in his mind. Sora clenched his eyelids harder when his tired self failed at opening them. _Sleep…_

_**"I know you will!"**_

Sora's eyes shot open and he realized two things instantly. The first was, he did not have eyes to open. The second was, he had no idea where he was or what was going on. He looked down, and he saw nothing in the white space he was in. The feeling of moving his head to look down was strange, since he already realized he did not have a head nor eyes and did not know how he was seeing. His body was see-through though, and though he had consciousness, it did not take long for him to understand that he did not have a physical form. _What is this place?_

Sora glanced around the white void at the lack of anything that could give him a marker as to where he was. **"And don't forget-" **Sora shook around and he clenched his eyes shut, only to snap them back open quickly as he felt himself falling back into the deep relaxing emptiness he had just come out of. _Don't forget what? "Forget?" What did I forget? What do I remember? _His head cocked to the side, and when he did so he shot his eyes open wider as he noticed something below him. He looked down and saw imprints in the white he was standing on, small footprints in the emptiness like there was something standing there where he imagined feet would be. _Strange. Is any of this for real, or… I've, thought that before. Where am I?_

He took a step forward, turning his head and looking around as he started moving through the white void. The realization that he was able to move did not hit him, nor did he flinch as he noticed his eyes felt more like actual eyes and not just a strange fuzzy vision he had. As things got clearer though, he saw that the white around him looked more like clouds that he was walking on top of, which made sense when he looked back down that his feet were leaving imprints in them. **"And don't be afraid…"**

_I'm, not afraid,_ Sora thought, as that deep voice echoed in his mind not really having a voice at all. It was more like he felt it speaking in a low rumble in his soul, his chest that he glanced down and saw a transparent shape of. _But I don't-_ **"And remember…" **_I don't remember! What am I supposed to remember? Is it, that girl? Is she the one I'm supposed to remember-_

**"You are the one who will open the door."**

A light flashed on his right side, and he looked down to his translucent hand that he saw for the first time. In that hand was the handle of a weapon. The handle was yellow with a round steel blade sticking off and ending in the shape of a key. _Huh, what's this? _**Keyblade. **_Well, thanks. And I'm supposed to open doors with this? _

The boy lifted the weapon and turned it in his grasp to stare at its odd shape closer. As he turned the weapon he could see his hand getting more defined, his skin focusing and becoming harder to see through. _I made a promise,_ he thought, and his hand tightened on that hilt that he lowered back down to his side. _Didn't I? _His determined look faltered and he opened his mouth, letting out a long yawn. _I, can't seem to remember. This place is nice… _In his mind appeared a bright white light, and in that light he saw the face of a girl getting farther away, though the tears spilling down her face were still easy to see.

His hands tightened into fists and his closed eyes snapped back open. His body that had just started to fade again became fully visible in that emptiness. _I have to get back to her! _The thought filled his mind and he did not argue with it, as his whole body ached at the image of that girl crying. He rose his right hand and looked at the Keyblade he was holding again, then he lifted it up high and slammed down in front of him. "Open!" He called out, and to his amazement the tip of the weapon started to glow.

The Keyblade shook in his grasp, a bright light shot out of the tip of the weapon and in a thin beam ahead of him before slamming into nothing and exploding outwards in a flash. Sora started running forward towards that flash, a smile spreading over his face and a determined look behind it. _Whoever you are, wherever you might be… _"I'm coming."

* * *

**A/N Hey everyone! Hope you enjoyed the first chapter. It's a pretty short one, first couple in this are, but they start to get longer and I have 4 of them finished up already. I finished KH3 the other day... and let's just say I wasn't satisfied with how they ended it. If you haven't played or seen the ending already, def don't be reading this if you don't want spoilers. I just wanted Sora to turn to Kairi on that tree in the final cutscene and give her a kiss and instead they Thanos-ed him away and it crushed me after waiting like twenty years for a happy ending and that to happen. Don't think that means this is going to just be a happy story though, and this is going to be a hard T rating in this story just a warning now. Started writing this out of the blue on a break from my work and my other main story right now which is a Boku no Hero story called Death (so if you're reading that one and saw this pop up don't worry I haven't stopped writing that, I just came up with this story too and figured why not post a chapter today). Let me know in a review below what you guys think of the chapter though and the premise for it, though you'll see there is some more to the basic premise than what's in this chapter (look at the story description). Well, thanks for reading and 'til next time!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2:**

"You made it, huh?"

Sora snapped his eyes open after clenching them shut while running through the white flash. He pulled his head back in surprise as instead of a white void, he was suddenly in a very dark and ominous place. He felt the rain a moment later but could not focus much on it or on his surroundings while faced with the dark figure in front of him whose presence intimidated him while also filling him with a strange sense of recognition. "Do I, know you?" Sora asked.

The man wearing a black cloak in front of him opened his eye a bit wider in surprise at the boy's question. Then he smirked and shrugged his shoulders, leaning back and saying smugly and in a knowing voice, "Who knows? The question should really be, do you know _you?_"

"Huh?" Sora tilted his head to the side. He shivered and glanced down, then his hands shot in front of his lower half as he tried to cover his bare body up. "Whoa! Wait- where am I?" Sora started looking around, taking in what was happening around him in different stages.

"You're in the World of Waking, kid," the man before Sora started. He continued to grin while lifting a hand towards the teen, and Sora stepped back only to look down in surprise as his body illuminated in a flash and got covered in a dark cloak similar to the man's. A black cloak with a silver zipper down the middle of it appeared on his body, and Sora felt clothes appear below it as well which warmed him up and started drying out the rain that had covered him. "You're welcome," the older man standing in front of him said as Sora looked himself up and down.

"Yeah, thanks," Sora lifted his head back up and said with a small nod. "So, the World of Waking?" Sora looked around at the rubble and ruins of huge buildings. There were dark mountains in the distance ahead of him, and it seemed like they were standing on a road between lines of destroyed skyscrapers. There was a dark ash coating everything and the ground was getting soaked which made the ash stick to Sora's feet before though now it was hard to see considering the black shoes he was wearing the same color as the wet ash. "It's, very…"

"No need to sugarcoat it," the man in front of Sora said with a laugh. He stepped to the side and leaned up against a broken chunk of wall on the side of the road that had its own wet coating of ash his glove smeared around. The man had his hood down showing his long wet grayish-black ponytail, he had an eyepatch over his right eye, and there was a scar below his left eye that jagged down across his cheek to his jawbone. The man turned his head and looked through his one good eye out into the distance, down the road towards the black mountains his golden eye narrowed at the sight of. "This place is going to shit. Won't last long now."

"What, is this place?" Sora asked, looking around at the strange dark world. The rain was pouring down but he did not see any clouds above. The buildings were all destroyed and decrepit, and it did not look like there was anyone there other than the two of them.

"You don't recognize it?" The man before Sora asked, turning back from the distant mountains to the boy in the middle of the road. "Not at all?"

The teenager with wet spiky brown hair shook his head slowly, frowning at the question which made it sound like he should. "I can't even remember, who I am. I don't know what's… Do we know each other?"

"Hahaha, hahahaha," the man leaning on the wall started laughing and when he stopped himself he wound up just letting out another round of laughs. "Well, let's just say," he stopped laughing while the boy was frowning at him in a more angry and still confused way. "I know you."

"You seem to know everything," Sora said, his eyes narrowing a bit like he thought the man already knew all the answers and was just messing with him with his vague questions and answers.

"Not everything," the man replied, and he pushed off the wall to take a step back Sora's way. "I have no idea how you managed to make it back again." Sora's eyes widened and his frown lifted as the man did not look to be lying about that. "My guess though," the one-eyed guy continued, and he looked at Sora carefully while lifting up the right corner of his lips into a grin. "Is you managed to grip onto something. When there was barely any of you left, just as there still doesn't seem to be much of you up there. Am I close?"

"'Something?'" Sora repeated, and he started to frown again as that just sounded like another vague thing. Then his eyes shot open huge and he whispered, "Her?"

"Of course," the man said, nodding like it was the obvious answer. "Well, I should have guessed you wouldn't be gone for good. This place though, it's not holding up as well as you are."

Sora had opened his mouth wanting to ask again what the man knew after speaking like they knew each other well, but that second part made Sora's eyes dart to the left and at a building down the road that started falling inwards towards the street. It was breaking apart as it fell, and chunks of it that broke off were turning completely to black masses that seemed to merge with the dark floor when they collided. "What's happening to it?" Sora questioned, as he glanced around at other buildings around that looked unstable and close to collapsing.

"It's what _already_ happened," the older man replied. "See this world is just like you. It's supposed to be gone. In fact, this world never should have been in the first place, so the fact that it's still holding on is pretty impressive if you ask me."

"Never should have been?" Sora repeated softly, getting even more confused and also a strange feeling of sadness at how the man said it.

"The World That Never Was," his companion said. "That's what this place is."

"I thought we were in the World of Waking?"

"We are, but a lot of stuff passes through this world. Things trying to come back to the realms above. This place is about to fade for good though," the man said it and sighed, but his expression steadied and with that look the world rumbled and made Sora stumble with his arms sticking out for balance. "See, I'm all that's holding this world together."

"You are?" Sora spun and asked. He froze after doing so, and he turned his head more in the direction he had come from. The light that had come with him when he emerged out into that world was gone, leaving the road behind him empty so he could see farther into the city. Past all the dark and crumbling buildings, Sora looked through the rain and saw a castle crashed into the city far behind him. There were some towers of the castle floating up in the sky, but one was dropping fast and it crashed into half of a standing skyscraper, taking it down while more towers of the castle started to fall. "What's happening?!" Sora shouted, stepping backwards as the floor below his feet shook. The shaking was not from the collision of the castle with the city, but from something bigger.

"This world held on, and my guess is because there's a piece of my heart that holds some nostalgia for this dump." The word 'dump' left the man's lips and a crack split through the road between Sora and the destroyed castle.

The rest of the floating pieces started to fall, and Sora realized that the man had done that with his words alone. "What are you doing?" Sora spun and shouted at the guy.

"Sorry kiddo, but I just don't care enough for this place any longer," he replied with a shrug and lifted both hands up like there was nothing to do. The man stepped to the side, moving away from a widening crack cutting through the ground. Sora started to calm down a bit as the man did not seem to be doing this intentionally for any specific reason. The guy with the eyepatch looked back into his eyes and said, "Thing is, a place like this should have fallen into nothingness a _long_ time ago. There were people who used to think of this place as home though, and the worlds themselves try not to disappear completely as long as there's still one person like that out there. I'm the only one left though, the last of the ones who actually lived here who cared. 'Cause of all the places I've been to, I actually liked this place a lot."

"So why, let it leave your heart?" Sora asked.

"Haha, ha you sound like him alright," the man laughed and made Sora's mouth curl in annoyance again. "I just don't have the room for it though," the man continued, responding to Sora's question this time and making the boy's eyes widen in surprise at it. "My heart's not big enough… Once you've been around, as long as I have, you have to decide what's worth keeping in your heart and what doesn't really need a place." He looked back towards that castle further in the city where he had once lived, then he looked closer at the kid staring at him with some sadness in his eyes. "Don't worry, I've got some room in there for you. So I won't leave you here completely screwed."

"What, do you mean?" Sora asked. He glanced around and then moved more towards the middle of the road as other buildings were breaking apart around it. The cracks were spreading, and the world shook again from something _big_ that had Sora tensing up.

"Well, the thing is," the man started scratching the back of his head through his soaking wet hair. He cracked a small grin and turned around, looking down the road in the opposite direction as the crashed castle and into the distance outside town again. "I can get out of here just fine. You, on the other hand-"

"Take me with you!" Sora called out. "You, know the girl don't you? The one I need to find! The one, I promised… Who I promised I would…" Sora tried hard to focus on what he was thinking about, but his voice trailed off and he stared past the man who was not looking back at him. Sora stepped forward hesitantly while staring out past the city and at the dark mountains outside it, the dark mountains that looked closer now than they were before. The bad feeling he had intensified and he gulped while stepping to the side of the other man in a black cloak. "What is-"

"The World Eater," his older counterpart replied before he could finish his question. Sora glanced to the side at him and then back at the mountains that he just noticed were getting closer, as distant as they looked. They were in motion, and getting bigger in size. "I was originally wishing this world would just, fade away. I held on a little longer though, so that I could use it as a bit of a sacrifice."

"You're sacrificing the world?" Sora asked nervously. "While we're in it?"

"Oh, I'm going to be long gone by the time that thing gets here," the man said in a smug way. He also used 'I' instead of 'we' which Sora noticed and tried not to start panicking over while he stared at those dark mounds in the distance. "But it's better this world, weak and without anyone on it, or even anyone who really cares about it, than any other world out there. Wouldn't you agree?"

"I, guess," Sora started. "But what is that thing? Why is it- it _eats_ worlds? That's crazy!"

"You're telling me," the older man said, and though his tone was the same joking one he had been using the whole time, it actually sounded serious for once too. "Told the old man that completing it might have unforeseen consequences, but I probably would have tried something else if I knew this thing would wake up. Been a long time since it's been up, and it's not going to be satisfied with just this world."

"You mean, it'll go to other worlds after this one?" Sora asked.

"You must be a genius," his companion replied. Sora took a step back on his side, as another dark mound appeared back behind the closer ones. In the dark distant horizon, Sora realized that most of the distance he was seeing actually was just another mound much _much_ bigger than the ones in front closer to him. "It's smart to be afraid there, kid. Last time, we had thousands of Keybearers to help stop that thing." Sora's eyes bulged and he spun to the man on his side who continued while looking out at the beast in the distance, "We're not in as bad a place as a few years back, actually a nice handful of us again instead of just a single 'chosen one.'" He smirked while glancing back at Sora who in turn looked down at his hand that he made his Keyblade appear in.

When Sora's Keyblade emerged, the entire world trembled and Sora's heart fell at the noise he heard echo through the entire World of Waking. It was a roar mixed with a shriek, and the voice alone hit the shaking world with giant earthquakes. "What did I do?!"

"It remembers the Keyblade!" The man next to Sora shouted while stumbling back and forth himself. "My guess is it's still pissed that we locked it up!"

"Well how do we lock it up again?!" Sora exclaimed.

"Sorry, that's not a job for two people," the older guy said with a laugh. The world started to settle down, but Sora swore he saw those dark mounds start speeding up in the direction of the city. The older man let out an impressed whistle as he looked out with a hand to his forehead, "Luckily though, it's not something we have to do today. Even this wreck of a world will hold it over for a bit." He leaned back and lowered the hand from his forehead, and he turned fully to the teen at his side who nervously turned back to him though he kept darting glances back in the direction of the beast.

"Listen," the man began, holding up a palm as he started up an offer. He hid his smirk and reached up, putting his black hood over the top of his head before continuing, "I could just tell you how to get off this world, how to escape the beast, but it's not going to come cheap. I've got to think about the long term, kid. How I'm going to stop this guy so I can get back to what I was doing before."

"Just tell me! I have to get back to her- and I have to get off this world!" Sora exclaimed the second part in a more hurried voice as a crack split the entire street to his left and widened enough that a building started crumbling down into it.

"I'll need your help fighting that thing when the time comes," the man started. He nodded his head to the right and in the direction of a monster that looked much bigger than the city they were in.

"That thing eats worlds!" Sora exclaimed back. "How can we-" he stopped shouting, and the face of the girl appeared back in his mind. Then what the man in front of him said about this thing going to other worlds echoed in his head, and Sora's fists started clenching at his sides with his right gripping harder around the yellow hilt of his Keyblade. "Which means, she's in danger too."

"That's a good way to think about it," his companion said with a nod and a smirk. "But I don't need the you who's here right now. I need you to get your power back, and you're going to need more than ever for this. It's why I said there's gonna be a cost. That fine with you?"

"Yes!" Sora exclaimed back.

_Should really be more careful to what you agree to. Not that you've got much of a choice in this situation. _Luxu grinned big and he held his right hand out to the side, and in it formed a long black Keyblade that he swiped across his body and made Sora stare with big eyes again. "Only way you're getting off this world is through using darkness. You don't have a lot of time to master it, but you've got to make a portal on your first try or you're getting sucked up by that thing when it gets here, oh I'd say, in a minute."

"A minute?!" Sora exclaimed, and he spun back but the beast did not look much closer than before. Yet those dark hills did seem to be moving faster, and he gulped while looking back at the one-eyed man who nodded at him before snapping his fingers on his left hand and making a black portal appear behind him. Sora stared at the portal in shock and he stepped forward, but Luxu held out his Keyblade and aimed the tip at Sora's chest which kept him back. "Hey! Let me in with you!"

"No way," Luxu replied. He smirked at the kid's angry look at his response, then he leaned forward and slashed down at Sora's right arm. He cut through the black sleeve the boy was wearing and cut his arm too, and Sora stumbled back and fell on the floor with blood gushing out of the wound.

Sora grabbed at his right arm with his left hand and gasped out in pain before clenching his teeth and snapping his head up to glare at the man before him. "Why would you do that?!" Sora shouted angrily.

"You mad?" Luxu asked. "Well I'm about to leave you here to die, so be mad at me. And use that anger, and the fear of the beast coming for you, the despair of knowing you'll never see _her_ again…" Sora's left hand clenched into his bloody right arm even angrier as the man taunted him with knowledge of the girl he was searching for without giving him answers as to who she was. "Take all those dark feelings and accept them. That's the power of darkness. Decide that you're not afraid of it, when you feel those dark and icky emotions pulling at your heart, and use them to get out of here before you're killed. As strong as your heart is, I don't think you're coming back again when all you've got right now is a half-cocked goal and a face you're searching for."

"I will find her!" Sora yelled, leaning forward and getting back up on his knees. The man he yelled it at turned around though with a humph and a big smirk cracking across his face. "And I- I- Don't leave me here!" Sora yelled, cutting back on the next thing he was going to shout strongly and his voice actually cracking as the man was leaving him behind. He started moving for the portal of swirling darkness, but it dropped down into the floor and disappeared a second later leaving Sora all alone with a deep gash in his right arm and a monster in his peripheral vision that he just noticed was much bigger than the last time he looked that way.

Fear took hold and flooded through Sora's body while he scrambled up to his feet and backwards. He turned and started running farther into the city towards the castle back behind him, but that castle was losing its light color and getting sucked up by the darkness covering most of the world. Black rain continued to fall all around him and Sora was panting as he gripped at his right bicep and felt blood spilling between his left hand's fingers.

The pain hurt. The feeling that the man who he had actually started trusting had betrayed him hurt more. Not just hurting him bad, but leaving him there to die. He could see that man's smirk, and he could hear that screech from before that still echoed in his mind and flooded him with fear. A glance over his shoulder and he saw darkness breaking up into the air, like the ground of the world was ripping apart around the huge dark mounds racing towards him. The world started to shake, and whether it was from the beast bearing down on him or the fact that the man who had been there lost all love for this world, he did not know.

_How do I get out of here?! Damn it! I just- I want to see her again! I have to get back to her! I promised I would! I remember, making her that promise. She's waiting for me! That girl… She's out there, and I'll never see her again. I can't get out of this world, and I'm going to lose her… I'm going to let her down._ Sora slowed down and he brought his left hand from his slashed sleeve over to his chest. His fingers curled into his chest at the feeling in his heart, and his knees started to shake like he was going to collapse at how much it hurt. _Why'd I even come back? He said I was gone, but I came back so I could be with her, and I messed that up. I couldn't even do that right. It hurts! _

Sora turned his head while still gripping at his chest. He looked behind him and his terror shot to new heights at the beast he saw just outside of the world, rising up so high that his chin slowly rose and his eyes trembled at the sight of the monstrous form towering over him. His right hand rose up and grabbed at his chest too, despite all the pain in his upper arm as blood continued to flow from the wound. The rain stopped pouring, as Sora's head lifted straight up and he stared at the beast covering it all.

_Accept it. It hurts though! But, but to get out of here, he said I- I need to accept these feelings. They're so dark… but that's the point. It's the power of darkness! That's what he said!_ In the corners of Sora's eyes, he watched as all the buildings started collapsing and getting knocked over by the flood of black liquid covering the world. It rushed down the street at him like a flood while the monster dropped down, covering him and the entire world in nothing but black. He felt himself getting sucked in, and the shape of a mouth appeared before his eyes that made his heart race so much harder behind where he was gripping his chest. Then his shaking lips flattened out and his eyes turned dark, and though he could not see them, the blue irises in those eyes started to change color.

An even deeper darkness arose as Sora was getting sucked forward through the black flood. Darkness erupted around him and all the dark feelings he had filled his heart and mind with so much power. His hands gripped tighter into fists, then his bloody right hand opened up and his yellow Keyblade appeared in it while he spiraled through the darkness. Chunks of world spun around him and he could not tell if he was underwater and drowning or if he was just holding his own breath. Through the darkness on his side though, he could see black wisps surrounding the yellow hilt of his Keyblade and twisting around it.

Black patterns covered the yellow that got darker to a deep gold just as his eyes were. The patterns snarled around the hilt and up the entire silver blade that turned darker until the steel was a cold black with only a silver highlight on the inner _sharpened_ edge. His eyes narrowed through the darkness and he reached out with his left hand, grasping at something in front of him while still feeling unable to breathe. He heard a roar behind him that filled him with fear, fear that intensified the dark feelings in his chest, and he yelled in his mind, _I'm not afraid of the darkness!_

The World Eater devoured The World That Never Was before it could ever return from the World of Waking. Then the beast moved on, though much slower and quieter once again. It devoured the world that Sora had been in, but the boy himself escaped by a much thinner margin than he knew. Having already been partly devoured but escaping from within the World Eater's incorporeal "mouth" that it ate worlds with. Sora slipped through another portal though, right into a dark passageway that he spilled out of with dark liquid flooding out with him. He coughed up a few buckets of black that just disappeared into the dark floor below his hands and feet.

Sora bowed his head down between his hands, gasping and panting for several seconds in exhaustion and anger. Then he rose his head up and glared ahead, his bloody and black fingers curling on the floor sending pain coursing through his body. His vision was hazy, not that there was anything to se in this completely empty world. In that dark passageway too, Sora could feel the dark emotions already filling him feeling so strong and eating away at his heart. _World Eater, that guy, they're my enemies. I'll beat them with the Keyblade! I- I can… Her! What am I-_ Sora's eyes bulged and he started pulling himself forward with a terrified look on his face. _I forgot about her for a second! No, longer! I wasn't even thinking- I have to get out of this place! He said that I could get to another world using the darkness, but I'm just stuck- except I'm not stuck! There has to be a way out of here! A way back to her!_

Sora pushed himself to his feet, and he grabbed at his right upper arm again as blood continued to come out of the deep gash that still hurt him a lot though it was feeling more numb now. He wanted to run forward, but he moved pretty slowly across the dark realm. _Focus. Her face. If I think of it, and only it, maybe I can open a portal to… Except, I have to use the darkness to get to her. I have to, feel so angry and dark- and there's no way I could while thinking of her. I don't want to feel that way while thinking about her. I don't know how to think that darkly though, if I might forget about her! Am I not strong enough to use the darkness and find her? That guy, seemed to think I am. He said I was strong before, and that he wants me to be strong again. This power feels so strange though, so new. It feels like I've never… _

Sora stumbled forward and fell off his feet. _Crap. I think, I need to get out of here. I have to get to her. And I have to, stop the World Eater. Right? I have, a Keyblade. That thing, eats worlds… He said, the Keybearers, could beat it… I'm so tired. Focus. Try? To just… get out… dark thoughts. Anger. Hate. Fear… I'll never see her again- I have to accept the dark feeling that comes with that, even if I won't accept it's true! I'll never see her again. I'll never see her again. I'll break my promise! _Sora's heart wrenched and he hated every second of it, but his expression was determined despite those thoughts he repeated to himself in a mantra over and over on his way to fading into unconsciousness. And right as he was finally losing it, one last portal opened up below where he lay, and he fell through.

* * *

**A/N Thanks for reading. Sora and Luxu talk this chapter in the World of Waking about the World Eater! I played the KH iPhone game for a bit, still don't get much of what that plot is or how they're going to continue it in whatever the _real_ KH4 is actually going to be. That's decades away though, so hope you guys enjoy the start of my KH4! Luxu gets Sora to use the darkness, wanting him to get stronger to be able to face the Dream Eater when the time comes, though with the sacrifice he gave he hopes they have some time before having to face it again. Sora escapes at the very last second though he undergoes some changes, and we'll see where he heads off to next chapter as he leaves for another world!**

redlox2 chapter 1 . Feb 14

I know about the ending right? to end Sora adventure (at least this part of it) that way? Will this story be exclusively be from Sora POV or will it change perspective back to Kairi and the former Guardians of Light? Did you personally think Sora was there in the ending or was it kairi heart basically saying goodbye to Soras?  
I cant wait to read more!

**YEAH! Got me so frustrated, I was shouting at my tv lol. Idk about only Sora's POV yet, but no spoilers either way about what direction this story is heading. Personally, I thought we were seeing Kairi saying goodbye to Sora. It looked like all the others were happy and having fun despite Sora not being there, implying to me that they know there is no way to get him back so there's no point in even trying, and they're going to just keep him in their hearts or something (really unfulfilling to me). It was a happy ending for everyone except the one I wanted to have the happy ending and just... gah. Well, that's my take on it anyway. Thanks for reviewing and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

cyber chapter 1 . 9h ago

at least the worlds where cool

**I agree the game looked beautiful and each world was like a movie in itself. It was awesome and I loved the game. It's got its flaws though and didn't live up to my 10 year hype train on it, but hey that's what my imagination's for! Can always add in some more when I'm not fully satisfied... also glad to see you reading this story too! Thanks for the review!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3:**

_"…I'm gonna stick like glue…" ~ ~ "Stick, because I'm- stuck on you…" ~ ~_

Sora roused to the music of Elvis coming from a record player on the floor of the room. He awoke feeling ice on his forehead that made him shiver at the same time that he groaned a mumble of tiredness. He shifted around and then parted his eyes open in a room that was already full of light, and he turned his head and looked at the small tan-skinned girl sitting at his side leaning over him with an icepack in hand pressed on his head.

The girl had long black hair and wore a blue dress with white leaf patterns on it. The leaves were so large that there were only four of them on the front of her dress, and there were cuts inwards on the sides of the leaves that made them look like flames. She had on a pair of green sandals, and she tilted her head to the side when Sora turned his to look at her in her brown eyes. "Hi," she rose a hand and waved at him while the Elvis continued to play in the background.

Sora tried to lift up his right hand to do the same, and he winced which made the girl look at him in surprise and worry. "Sorry! Don't move around a lot!" She put her hand back down and grabbed the icepack wrapped in a paper towel that she put back on his forehead. "Are you okay? Your right arm looked really bad-"

"My arm," Sora muttered, turning his head the other way as the girl on his left. He looked to his right and down, and he stared at his arm that was flat out at his side with the top of it wrapped in white bandages. Sora started sliding up the bed and the girl next to it backed off as he came up from under the covers. "Oh-" Sora stopped sliding out as he realized he was not wearing a shirt, then he got confused as to why that was and started looking around. _I had on a cloak- it was soaked and bloody though- and my arm! That guy, he… Where am I now? What is-_ "What is this place?" Sora asked, turning back to the girl who looked back at him and stared him in his gold irises.

"This is my room," the girl replied. "I'm Lilo by the way." She reached to Sora's left hand and grabbed it, and he got confused but let her move it up to his own forehead where she pressed it onto the icepack so she could stop holding it there and back off from him. Lilo then stepped away from the bed and tilted her head to the side again, "Who are you?"

"I'm… I'm, looking for someone."

"'Looking for someone?' That's a weird name." Lilo remarked.

"That's not my-"

"Hey Nani! He's awake!" Lilo shouted out of nowhere while Sora was still trying to defend himself there.

Sora pulled back at the shout before realizing that it was meant for someone else. He glanced past the small girl in the middle of the room, and he looked towards the window and out into a forested area. _It's bright outside. That's nice. At least I'm not, in the darkness! That's where I was when I passed out. So how, did I get here?_ _This is too confusing._ Sora slid down the bed and he rested his head back on the headboard behind him.

"There's no way, Lilo," an older woman's voice started while Sora heard footsteps approaching the room they were in. "I told you to leave him be. He's not going to be getting up for a while, so just wait until the doctor-" the door opened up and Nani Pelekai walked in only to stop as she looked to the bed and into the eerily dark yellow eyes of her guest. "Or, maybe he's already awake," Nani lost her annoyed and hurried expression to instead smile and brush down her pants before stepping towards the bed. "Are you okay there…" she trailed off so he could tell him her name.

"Looking for someone," Lilo said. Nani turned to her sister in confusion while Sora sweatdropped and racked his mind to try and remember what it was he was forgetting. Lilo continued meanwhile, "That's his name-"

"No it's not," Sora mumbled. "It's… it's!" Sora grabbed his forehead tighter with his left hand, and he clenched his eyes shut trying to think of it.

"Hey hey," Nani reached out and she put a hand over Sora's that had his stop shaking. Sora opened his eyes, and the older woman who looked like Lilo but older gave him a small smile after losing her worried look. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure you'll remember soon." Nani had leaned forward over Sora while saying it, then she turned and sat on the side of the bed after reassuring him and seeming to calm the boy down. "But you sure surprised us."

"I did?" Sora asked, wondering what she was referring to.

"You don't remember?" Lilo asked, running back up to the bed and leaning in towards the face of the teenage boy who just shook his head no in response. "You totally like fell out of the sky-"

"He fell out of a tree," Nani corrected with a sigh as Lilo tried to exaggerate it. Sora looked back at the older woman and then to Lilo, and he wondered to himself if the little girl had the more likely explanation. "And you really cut up your arm badly," Nani continued. "It's a good thing David was with us-"

"David's Nani's boyfriend," Lilo said with a hand cupped to her mouth. "And he used to be a lifeguard, so he knows first aid. We were going to bring you to a doctor, but Stitch really wanted to bring you home with us."

"I was going to ask you about that," Nani started. She pushed her hands down on her sides and got up from the bed. "But seeing as you're still a bit hazy on your own name, I don't think we'll be getting any answers yet. So how about I make us some breakfast?"

Sora's stomach rumbled at the mere mention of breakfast. Nani laughed and Lilo smiled wide at Sora's stomach's answer, while Sora just stared down at his stomach and got a much more thoughtful look on his face than the other two thought he would. _When was the last time I ate something? What's my favorite food? Why do I know what food is? What breakfast is? Yet I can't remember… what can't I remember? Anything important. My name. My friends… Stitch? _"Wait, who's Stitch?" Sora asked, looking at Lilo as Nani headed out to go back downstairs.

"Stitch is my dog," Lilo replied. She glanced behind her towards the window, then back at the door, then to Sora who she leaned towards while cupping a hand to her mouth again. "But he's actually an alien!" She whispered it to him but her whisper was loud and excited. "It's a secret, but I think you already know, right? Did it jog anything?"

"An alien," Sora whispered quietly in response. He slid back up the bed again, and he stopped even though he wanted to get up as he was still only partly dressed in what felt like a pair of boxers.

"Here," Sora looked at the girl who said that while reaching to her side around the foot of the bed. "David had to go to work, but he brought one of his shirts that you can wear. Your, cloak, is outside on the drying line. Nani didn't want to throw it in our laundry with that blood on it-"

"Thanks," Sora said, taking the shirt with his left hand and then smiling at the girl he cut off. "I like it." He lifted both arms and slid them up into the shirt and through the sleeves of the orange Hawaiian shirt. He winced while raising his right arm, but he ignored that bit of pain and just sat up more comfortably once he was dressed.

"Here's a bathing suit," Lilo held up a pair of shorts with strings on the front that Sora grabbed too in a bit of surprise. "I'll leave you alone for a minute. Don't touch anything, okay?"

Sora sheepishly nodded his head. "Yeah, got it," he replied. _I'm in a girl's room. I shouldn't mess with any of her things. They're being really nice to me after all. I need to get out of here though. I need to figure out, if this is the world that she's in. The girl I promised I'd come back to! She's the reason I'm here, and if I find her I'm sure I'll remember everything else too!_

Lilo left the room, and Sora came out a minute later dressed in attire more fitting of that world than the black cloak he had arrived in the night before. "So, is Stitch-"

"Breakfast's ready!"

"Let's go!" Lilo grabbed Sora's hand and started leading him towards the kitchen before he could finish his question.

Sora frowned as he was unable to figure out what was going on, but he reminded himself as he followed the small girl how much they were doing for him and tried to smile despite his frustration. _That man, the World Eater, different worlds, darkness. I still feel, dark. Ever since I used it, something's different. Different from just how strange I felt after coming back… coming back from what? What happened to me? That guy thought I should be dead. I feel, like I almost died._

"Hey now, you don't like pancakes?"

Sora rose his head and looked at Nani who gave him a more hesitant look at the dark one he had on his face. Sora's eyes widened at the way she pulled back, and he shook his head around fast to try and shake his dark expression away. "Sorry, no of course I do. I was just, trying to remember-"

"Remember what?" Lilo asked, lowering her fork from the seat on Sora's right. "Your name?"

"Everything," Sora said. He started to cut his pancakes as he was feeling really hungry, but he asked as he started to eat, "Do you know why Stitch wanted me to come with you? Do we know each other? Could he tell me who I am?"

"Maybe," Nani replied, though she turned away and her voice sounded doubtful. "Though, Stitch isn't really… that great of a talker."

"I'm sure he'll know exactly who you are! Once he gets back with Jumba and Pleakly," Lilo lowered her excited look a bit while mentioning that.

As she was going to continue, Sora cut in, "Where did they go?"

"These creepy, _things_ have been showing up all over the place," Nani said as she washed the pan she had used to make the pancakes. She waved it up in the air and then brought it back down to keep scrubbing while saying, "They kept popping up and destroying stuff around town, and people obviously started blaming Jumba and Stitch."

"Jumba's going to capture one, and then they're going to do experiments and figure out what they are," Lilo said, and she made creepy hand motions in front of her of pretending to use medical tools that had Sora get an uneasy feeling in his stomach. "They're monsters though! And they've been attacking people after popping out of nowhere, just like…" Lilo started humming and she leaned back in her seat, looking down her nose suspiciously at the boy who lowered his bottom lip a little bit before telling himself that she was joking with him.

Sora paused his chewing for a second. He pointed at himself with his eyes big and a shocked look on his face, then he swallowed a big gulp of his breakfast before grinning at the girl sitting next to him. "Maybe I am one of-" Sora started joking to the girl but he froze. The older woman at the sink had looked back over her shoulder and started smiling at the teen's ability to joke despite not really knowing what was going on, and Lilo had started looking at him with big eyes only to get confused as he stopped what he was saying.

A light flashed on Sora's right hand and he held his arm out to the side while turning to look at it. Lilo and Nani both stared with their eyes huge too as the golden hilt emerged with black tendrils snaking around it to the dark steel hilt. The hilt extended out a few feet before turning into a key at the end, and Sora had a bad gut feeling as the Keyblade emerged in his grasp. He spun his head towards the opposite side of the room and jumped out of his chair, right as three black circles appeared sliding across the floor towards the room.

"Inside the house?!" Nani shouted, sounding more angry and frustrated than afraid.

"Ooh! I'll get them this time!" Lilo shouted excitedly, jumping out of her seat herself and running towards the creatures.

"Wh- hey! Be careful!" Sora called out, looking to his side at the girl running next to him in surprise.

Nani started forward with a frying pan she had just dried off, and she called at her sister, "Lilo stay back!"

"I can do this!" Lilo exclaimed, and she pulled out a ray gun that she aimed at the dark forms popping out of the floor. She hesitated after aiming towards one, and she tilted her head to the side as the oddly cute Shadow tilted its own at her. "Or, maybe I don't need-"

"Look out!" Sora jumped forward and slashed his Keyblade down, slamming it into the closest Shadow that just leapt at Lilo after staring at her with its beady glowing yellow eyes. He knocked the creature back, but it just landed on its four feet and kept slinking around on the wood floor while looking at the humans with their dark faces. "Are you alright?" Sora asked, looking next to him at the girl he had to shove a bit when he leapt like that.

"Alright!" Lilo exclaimed, throwing a fist forward and shaking it at the creatures past Sora. "I wanted to give you a chance, but you're not like-" Two of the creatures rushed forward, and Lilo dropped down and did a barrel-roll to the right before sticking both arms out in front of her. "Pew pew pew," she fired the ray gun and slammed the creatures before they could reach Sora.

Nani was reaching down for her sister, but she snapped her head up and dropped her jaw as the Shadows flew across their living room. One slammed into a recliner chair and knocked it backwards while the other flew through the window that shattered past the explosions of blue light Lilo was firing. Sora had his jaw dropped as he looked to his right and down at the girl on her stomach who was grinning big after firing those shots. Nani shouted at her younger sister though, "Just what did that idiot Jumba think he was doing?! Giving you a weapon like-"

"Were you just, making 'pew pew' sounds while you shot it?" Sora asked, looking at the girl's face in amazement and then smiling big as she turned and nodded at him.

"I thought it would make the noise itself, but it's kind of disappointing…"

Sora lifted up his Keyblade and aimed it forward at the Heartless that he had already knocked backwards. It looked about to rush at him, and Sora smiled before saying, "Pew pew pew pew pew!" White light shone at the end of his weapon, and Lilo and Nani both let out a combined 'Wow' as five white lights fired from the boy's weapon that had materialized out of thin air a minute ago.

The Shadow blew apart after the final shot slammed into it, and Sora let out a laugh as he was not expecting it. "These things have been messing up your town?" Sora asked. He jogged forward into the other room and towards the recliner that a flat black circle just slid up and emerged as the Shadow that Lilo had shot back before. He smashed it up with his Keyblade and then jumped and slammed down on it, breaking it apart again into black dust and bubbles that faded away after a second.

"Well…" Nani started, composing herself and stepping into the living room after Sora. "Most people here can't just, summon, strange weapons out of thin air."

"And I'm the only one with-"

Nani snatched the ray gun out of Lilo's hand as she was bragging about it. "Hey!" Lilo called out, reaching up for it and then putting her fists on her hips when Nani started scolding her and saying how she did not need a weapon like that. "But how am I supposed to protect myself if those monsters come back?" Lilo argued, to which Nani actually hesitated.

Nani turned though and she looked at the spiky-brown-haired boy who felt like something was happening that he should probably argue with. "Don't worry, our mystery boy here seems plenty strong enough with that…"

"It's the Keyblade," Sora said, then he let go of it and watched as it disappeared in a sparkle of glowing lights.

"Cool." Lilo said, looking back up at Sora after gawking at where the weapon just disappeared. "But you know, Nani's right! You could totally protect me, soooo… why don't we go look for Stitch?"

Nani sighed and rolled her eyes. "Lilo, I told you-"

"I know I know, it's dangerous outside! But we haven't heard from Stitch and the others all morning! I want Stitch to be able to meet his friend!" Lilo turned to Sora looking for help from the mystery teen, but Sora held his hands up defensively not wanting to get between the sisters. Lilo added when she saw Sora's hesitant look, "And maybe if we look around, some of your memories might get jogged! You're not going to remember anything just sitting around here."

"Huh," Sora turned and looked at the broken window that Nani had walked to and started sweeping up around while mumbling about the creatures. She turned to him and sighed again with an exasperated look, but Sora did not notice as he kept staring through the cracked glass. _She's right. I'm not going to find out anything in here. I don't know what those monsters were, but I feel like I recognized them. Maybe if I go out there, I'll recognize some more… _

"Hey Lilo, Nani," Sora looked from the older woman right in front of him back to the girl on his side who had watched his thoughtful look quietly there for a few seconds. "What's this world called?" Sora asked. To him, it seemed like a reasonable question. He quickly realized that it was not a very normal question to ask though.

"Whoa! Are you an alien too?!" Lilo exclaimed in awe.

"This is too weird," Nani started rubbing her forehead and then made her way back for the kitchen. "Be careful around the window, I'm getting a broom."

"This is Earth. Do you think you're an alien? Like Stitch?" Lilo asked, climbing up on the couch and jumping on it in excitement while looking the boy up and down. "You look human though." The girl tilted her head to the side and added, "Most aliens look real alien-like."

"I think I'm human," Sora replied. "I just don't know, if this is my world."

"Do you mean, where you're from?" Nani asked from the kitchen. She started coming back in, and she continued to the boy who gave her a confused look, "Well you're in Hawaii. You remember how you got to Hawaii?"

"What's Hawaii?" Sora asked.

"Our islands," Lilo started, only to open her eyes wide as the boy in front of her did the same. "What? Do you remember-"

"Islands," Sora whispered. The girls stared at him while Sora looked back out the window again. "I think, my home was…"

Nani hummed and she glanced over at her sister, before sighing and starting in a reluctant tone, "I guess, Lilo might be right. Maybe we should go look around. Try and jog your memory. If your home is around here, which I'm guessing it is, and you're really just one strange… well, it's worth a shot."

"Yay!" Lilo agreed with her sister with a shout of excitement.

Nani hummed to herself and then turned to go grab the pistol she had put away, thinking it might be a good idea to bring it along if those creatures were still lurking about. "How's your arm, by the way? Feeling better?"

Sora glanced to his upper right arm where he could feel the wound but had been moving it around normally for a while now. "I think so," Sora replied. "Thanks, for taking care of me." He turned to Lilo and added, "Both of you."

"It's no problem," Lilo said with a wave of her hand, barely focused on his thanks since she was excited about going out now. "I'm going to get my bathing suit! Nani I'll grab yours too!"

"Thanks Lilo!"

_Huh, guess I'm already wearing one so that's good… Islands. Islands. I can't picture them, but- but I feel like-_

"You ready?" Sora opened his eyes and he looked at the younger girl in front of him who had a bag over her arm with towels and changes of clothes in it. Sora nodded and Lilo waved at him to follow her.

"…yeah no, I think we'll just stop by your place later. Thank you for saying you're willing to come out, but I think my last message was more frantic than it needed to be. He doesn't look bad at all- Hey Lilo hold on a minute! Yes, sorry. I did. Yes, I made sure I cleaned it out. I know. I'll have him over sometime soon- okay, yes, noon is great. Sorry again. I'll see you then."

"Come on, Nani!" Lilo complained.

"I think she's just taking her time because she doesn't want me to remember and have to leave," Sora said, cupping a hand to his mouth like Lilo had done with him earlier in her room. He kept his voice raised a bit while Nani was walking over towards him, and he grinned a little while saying it as the woman could see he meant for her to hear which just had her rolling her eyes at him.

Lilo started laughing though, and Sora smiled which had Nani smiling too and laughing after a second as she admitted to herself that she did not mind the boy too much. They started out of the house, but Nani slowed down near the door she was going to close and lock behind her. She looked back through the house and out a window towards the drying line she had outside, and her smile lowered back down. _That cloak is like nothing I've ever seen. So strange. And what was that question about worlds? This kid, might really be an alien. Still, as much crazy as we've seen, _Nani turned back around and looked down the steps at her sister and their new friend who were walking down and talking to each other. _Making that thing appear out of nowhere, it was like magic. And these monsters popping up lately, they're coming out of nowhere too. People are scared… I'm scared._

_ His eyes scare me. He's just a boy, but that gold hue. His weapon was dark too, and what if when he gets his memory back… what if he's not…_

* * *

**A/N Lilo and Stitch world! Sora wakes up in Hawaii, and there are Heartless popping up all over the place for some reason. Not that he yet knows what a Heartless is... Stitch is around though! We'll see what's up with this world and if Sora can regain any of his memories on his search for "the girl," next time! Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and leave a review below telling me what you think of the start of the story so far!**

Smlluffy67 chapter 2 . 11h ago

Welp you are are one of the first people to start making a where sora ended up at fanfiction and thank God it's you cause I know with the way your storys are this is gonna be great and I can agree kh3 had ists flaws but it's still one of my favorite kh games heck on of my favorite games of all times and hey maybe well get a final mix dlc somewhere down the line

Vanitas getting thrown through doors was my favorite part lol

**Thanks for the review! Glad you've got high hopes for this, I'll try not to disappoint. KH3 was one of my favorite games ever too, hope no one thinks I feel otherwise just 'cause of all the negative stuff popping up lately. Def really enjoyed it, despite the flaws. Hope you liked the new chapter! Also fav part: probs Dog Street popping in and saving Ansem the Wise from Ansem, really didn't expect Hayner, Pence, and Olette to manage it and it was awesome XD Vanitas through doors was funny too lol**

serpent1234 chapter 2 . 9h ago

I hope you also include Kairi in this story. I want her to look for Sora and unleash her potential.

**We'll see... no spoilers though!**

redlox2 chapter 2 . 9h ago

Sora litterally brought everyone together by giving himself up. Bro I have a couple KH3 stories on my page if you want to check them out!  
For this chapter I like you portraying Luxu with his Xignaf personality (which he implied was an act in the secret reports but he chose to just roll with it),

**Yeah Sora managed to save Kairi, but lost himself. I just checked out your new stories, (nice btw), but I didn't think in that final cutscene anyone else could see Sora. My interpretation which I get isn't everyone's, but I think when Donald tries to go over he wants to get Kairi to join in the fun but Mickey and Goofy stop him, hold him back and they all look out towards Kairi and the sunset past her knowing who she's thinking about which is why she's not over with all of them. I think at this point everyone is thinking their goodbyes to Sora, but I thought only Kairi actually saw him, and yet Sora was not actually there even though she saw him. It was more like she wished he was there, and Nomura was tricking us into thinking maybe Sora did survive, only for us to realize as Kairi lets go and Sora disappears for her too that he's gone for good. (At least in their minds right now, I assume/hope next KH game maybe someone will start a new mission to find Sora). But it felt to me when I watched that the first time that it was over, and Kairi was sitting out on the tree by herself thinking about Sora and wishing he was there with them, with her... Thanks for the review and hope you liked the chapter, and glad you liked Luxu's portrayal. I think even when he was revealed as Luxu he kept acting very Xigbar-y to the other ancients who appeared so that's how I'm writing his character.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4:**

Sora walked through town with Lilo and Nani, all of them eating ice cream. They had decided to go get some after lunch, and though Nani made them detour to a doctor's office all of a sudden at noon, Sora got a new bandage wrapped around his arm and was allowed to go on his way with the girls. He had been enjoying the day so far, so when the man in the white scrubs had started asking him questions to try and fix his memory loss, Sora had replied that he was actually starting to remember stuff the more he walked around with Lilo and Nani.

Lilo had laughed about it with him afterwards saying she saw what he was doing, though Sora said he was feeling like he recognized some things the longer they hung out. Nani had been pretty quiet since the doctor's office though, and she blamed it aloud on the ice cream being really good when the others looked back at her and asked if anything was up. She stared at Sora's right arm again though when the other two turned back forward. _It was so much worse last night. Does he heal faster? I've never seen anything like that. _

"Let's go to the beach next! We haven't looked there, and we could stop at David's place afterwards and see if he's done with work soon. Then we could all go surfing, and if we find Stitch I'm sure he'll want to…" Lilo rambled on and Sora nodded in agreement with all she was saying. He had not been lying to the doctor solely to get out of there faster, he really did want to stay with the two of them longer as he was having a lot of fun.

_I don't recognize the town, but I don't want to tell the two of them that. They think I'm probably from around here. Even Lilo's theories that I'm an alien, I think she's only half-sold on that. Even though I kind of am. Probably. Unless this really is my world… _Sora slowed down, then he sped up after staring down the street with wide eyes at the beach up ahead.

"H-Hey!" Nani called after him, remembering that she was supposed to be watching after this teenage amnesiac.

"Wait," Lilo pulled on the back of Nani's shirt when her sister tried running past. Nani frowned down at her sister, but Lilo shook her head and said, "He remembers something." Her voice was quiet as she did not want to interrupt what her friend was thinking about, and Nani turned back hearing that in her voice and just watched as Sora slowed down on the edge of the beach and started walking forward slower.

Sora stopped on the sand and he breathed heavy but fast breaths as he looked around. He stared to his right down the shore that was mostly empty. There were some people gathered at the lifeguard station, there was an empty restaurant down the beach, but then Sora looked the other way. He looked down the beach to his left in the direction more of the forest wrapping around the edge of the island. There were some wooden steps leading up into the forest and houses close to the shore, there was a dock that stretched out and had some boats on the end of it, and Sora's head pounded while his heart ached at the sight.

In his vision, the beach he was looking at overlapped with another. The sand changed color a bit just as the trees did. The dock turned shorter and only had wooden dinghies at the end. The stairs leading up into the forest were replaced by ladders and treehouses at the top that wrapped around. Sora's head turned back from those treehouses and he looked at the shore, out into the distance on the shoreline where he saw three people running with their backs to him. They were heading away, a boy with spiky brown hair in the middle, chasing after a taller boy with longer silver hair. And in the back of the three was a girl with short red hair in a white tank top that made Sora take a step in that direction. "Is that," he started whispering, and then the image he was staring towards was shattered as a group of six busted through it.

"Keep running!" Jumba shouted back at the thin green alien with one eye who let out a yelp of fear. Pleakley just looked back and he screamed in panic, throwing his arms up in the air and running faster as the dark forms behind them continued chasing them over the sand.

"Well those, are new," Nani said in a hesitant voice, and Sora noticed just then how close Lilo and her sister were to his back. They stared towards Jumba and Pleakley, and behind them at three black forms that were also sand-colored and had bodies tinted in dark red and blue. They had many arms sticking out of either side and were each around five feet tall, swinging their many arms ahead while racing over the sand on lower bodies that looked like miniature sand tornadoes.

Then there was the third figure running away with Jumba and Pleakley, a much larger figure than the others with the head of a gray shark or a whale who stopped running and turned to point his blaster at the monsters again. "I will not be driven from my own ship by, by sand!" Captain Gantu fired over and over back at the monsters, but unlike the weak Shadows these ones were not taking much damage from his blaster shots.

"Yes! Ah, you hold them off," Jumba called out over his shoulder, and the fat alien with four eyes started laughing while the monsters swarmed Gantu's legs. The end of their sand arms had dark claws on them, and the creatures with black hearts on the front of their bodies outlined in a red highlight with dark blue around them actually took the giant alien off his feet which made Jumba's sadistic smile drop. "Oi, oi! You pesky little… haah?"

"Lilo!" Pleakley shouted after spinning to the boy running past, seeing the girl behind him running to try and keep up.

"Wait! You don't know if-" Lilo started shouting, but she slowed and got quiet as the boy pulled out his weapon from thin air again.

"Ooooh?" Jumba leaned forward and his eyes locked on the key-shaped weapon that the boy pulled out while running at Gantu and the monsters around him.

Sora aimed forward and he fired off a volley of white lights at a creature climbing up on Gantu's chest over his black uniform and lifting its claws up while the alien covered up his face with his hands for protection. Gantu lowered his hands and looked up, watching as the teenager leapt over his head and slammed his Keyblade into another of the monsters.

Another creature attacked Sora and he stumbled forward on the sand, gasping out in pain at a hit that hurt more than he thought it would. _Well, I'm not as strong as I thought,_ Sora spun and he blocked the claws from a sandy creature trying to get the drop on him. "But I can still deal with the three of you-" In Sora's peripheral vision, two more of the sand-monsters popped up with spinning tornadoes below them out from right below the sand. Then a half dozen of the small black dog-like monsters emerged too and he lowered his bottom lip as this was starting to seem harder than he thought.

"Nani! The ray gun!" Lilo yelled at her sister while they were all just staring over at their friend who did not wait a second to go run and help Gantu. Nani looked at her sister who was reaching up for it, but Nani pulled it out herself and shook her head in disbelief as to what she was about to do.

"Hey! This is not-" Jumba started, only for Nani to reach out and grab him by a sleeve of his stretched Hawaiian shirt to tug him along with her.

"We're helping him!"

"Pleakley, where's Stitch?" Lilo asked while she and the green alien were staying farther behind. Jumba and Nani ran closer to the monsters and started shooting at them, while Gantu stood up and kicked around at the creatures. Gantu fired his blasters at them too while Sora fought from up close, and Lilo watched them all nervously but had something else foremost in her mind. "You guys were together! Where did he go?"

"We got separated by these things! They're all over the place you know? Like everywhere! And every time Jumba catches one, or we think he does- poof! They just disappear out of thin air! We're going around in circles but there's no end to them!" Pleakley waved his skinny arms up in the air in exasperation and panic, and Lilo turned back with a nervous look towards her sister and the others. Her nervous look started to fade though as she looked past her sister and Jumba who stopped firing, and even Gantu stopped stomping around to just stare as the boy slashed back and forth across the monsters.

Sora dove to his right into a roll and came out to slash back and forth on another creature that he had been farther away from before. He slashed so hard that his slash hit the two Shadows on either side of the Sandnado Heartless he was targeting, and he broke apart the smaller ones that had already been damaged from blaster shots before finishing his combo with a big powerful uppercut that broke the sandy one apart.

As Sora was finishing his combo, the others were feeling like he had it under control. So none of them stepped in soon enough when the last remaining Sandnado swung its claws down at Sora's back as he was landing from his combo. They tried to get ready to attack again, but Sora had his head half-turned and his eyes growing wide in fear, only for the monster to explode first into darkness with a flash of green light blowing apart from his back. A blue blur fell through the smoke and ash of the destroyed creature, and the fuzzball pointed his blasters each and every way with his lower two arms.

Stitch saw that there were really no more Heartless around, then he turned back forward and lifted his head and his big black eyes to look into Sora's. Sora stared down at the blue creature with a cute face despite looking pretty intimidating with its sharp claws and four arms and the bared teeth it had when landing in combat mode. Stitch's mouth curved up into a big smile though that put Sora at ease, and then Sora fell backwards while lifting up his arms. Sora rolled over his head and flipped back onto his back as Stitch tackled him to the sand.

"Stitch!" Nani shouted, and she started running forward only for Jumba to grab her arm this time.

"Wait! There is something…" Jumba walked forward slower and he stared closely at the two just as the others started to. Stitch rolled around with the boy he had tackled, and they all caught a glimpse of the boy's face for a moment to see him smiling and laughing at what was happening to him. "How strange," Jumba said, examining the boy's reaction and then Stitch's face again.

"They do know each other," Lilo said while jogging forward, looking at Jumba like it was obvious already.

"But how?!" Jumba exclaimed, and Lilo shrugged as it did not really matter to her.

Captain Gantu frowned down at the boy who had been tackled by Stitch, then he grunted and turned his head to the side. "I could have handled them all on my own." Sora and Stitch turned and lifted their heads up to the giant alien, and Gantu saw their skeptical looks out the corners of his eyes that made him grind his teeth in frustration and start storming back down the beach the direction they came from. "I'm getting my ship!"

"Be careful Big Dummy!" Lilo called after the big guy she saw getting beat up not too long ago. It was teasing but she still got a frown on her face when he just ignored her and continued off. Her somewhat nervous look was quickly replaced though as she ran up to Stitch and her mystery friend. "Stitch! I was worried, are you okay?"

"Uh huh," Stitch replied, nodding back at Lilo and then turning to Sora who was sitting cross-legged in front of the small blue alien now. "Are you, okay?" Stitch asked, his voice slow and sounding odd to Sora like speaking was not simple for him. His voice was a little nasally and high-pitched, but Sora smiled wide at the question the alien asked him.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sora said. He reached up and rubbed his upper right arm that ached a bit after all that slashing, though it hurt a lot less than it did that morning when he woke up. "But you, you know me?" Sora asked, and he smiled hopefully at the creature that had a look of recognition on its face when it tackled him.

Stitch started to lose his smile at the question though. "You, forget-"

"Stitch it's not his fault!" Lilo called out as she saw both of them starting to get really sad there all of a sudden. Sora turned to Lilo in surprise at her sudden shout, and the girl leaned in more towards Stitch as she continued, "He bumped his head when he fell, or something. Now we're trying to get his memory back!"

_If only that was it, _Sora thought. _Just the fall. That would make it, easier. This world doesn't really… It doesn't look the same as those islands. Or maybe, everything's just different. How long has it been since I last saw that place? How long was I… dead? Did I die? _

"Stitch," Stitch began, and the teen focused his vision as he had dazed himself there for a moment. Then his eyes opened huge and his breath hitched as Stitch took the claw he had pointed at himself, and pointed it towards him next, "Sora."

"Sora?" Lilo asked, turning to the spiky haired boy herself.

"Sora," he whispered, and then he heard a voice that he recognized shouting that name. He heard the voice that he heard calling out to him back when there was nothing, shouting that name in his direction. "That's my name," he whispered, and he rose his head back up with a huge smile at the blue creature that smiled big at that grateful and happy look. "I'm Sora. And you're Stitch!"

"You remember him?" Lilo asked with a big smile.

"Nope," Sora shook his head while responding with a laugh. "But, but I'm glad. I know my name now." He turned to Lilo with an excited smile that the girl who had started to frown for a second could not help but start smiling again at the sight of.

Behind the three of them, Nani stood in between two aliens and faced Jumba with a hesitant frown on her face. "You're their creator, aren't you? How do you not know where Stitch met him?"

"All I am saying, is that I have never…" Jumba slowed down and he scratched his chin while looking closely at the boy. "Actually, I do recognize that weapon he was using. I once saw some people who could use one just like it. Terra, Aqua," Jumba quieted down and scratched his chin harder while looking closely at Stitch again. "That was a long time ago however. As to how he knows this, Sora, I do not know." _I will get a look at that Keyblade though! Run experiments and create one of my own!_

"Were those other two you met, good people?" Nani asked, her voice quieter this time so the three ahead of them in the sand definitely wouldn't hear her.

"Why do you ask?" Pleakley asked with a hand cupped to his mouth in a soft whisper. "Do you think something's wrong with our mystery human-"

"I'm not so sure he's…" Nani started but stopped herself when the other two looked at her with their eyes (or eye) widened huge. "It's nothing," Nani whispered.

"So Stitch," Sora started, looking at his new/old blue friend and smiling as he felt he was finally about to get some answers. "How do we know each other? We're friends, right?"

"Stitch and Sora," Stitch started, pointing at himself and then Sora again. "Fight-" he pointed his arms out and made blaster sounds like the ones Lilo had made back at the house before that Sora smiled at the sound of. He started listening closer though as did Lilo and the others behind Sora who walked forward to listen in. "Everywhere. We fight, Heartless!"

"Heartless?" Sora asked. "Is that what those creatures were that just attacked?"

Stitch nodded his head fast at the question. "Wait, you know?!" Jumba shouted, running forward and yelling at the blue creation who just admitted that despite having only said that they needed to fight them before. "All this time!"

"Secret," Stitch said, looking to its creator and then back at Sora who stared him deep in his black eyes. "Donald, Goofy, Sora. Say Heartless, are secret?" Stitch turned his head to the side, wondering if that was not true anymore.

Sora shrugged his shoulders back at Stitch though. "I don't know," Sora responded. "Donald and Goofy though, are they my friends too?"

Stitch nodded again, slower this time though and with a sadder look that Sora could not remember them. "Hey Stitch," Sora started when Stitch nodded at him like that. "This, isn't my world, is it?" Sora questioned. He had felt it for a while now, and he tried to ignore it while he was enjoying the morning with the girls, but the look at the beach told him how much different this world was from the one he thought he was trying to get back to. Stitch shook his head back at Sora who sighed at the response and bowed his head to stare at the ground. "I didn't think so."

"So you're really an alien?" Lilo asked, looking at Sora again in awe as he still looked very human to her.

"I, guess so," Sora replied softly.

"And you don't know where you're from?" Pleakley asked, stepping forward and leaning down a bit to ask the boy. "I know most species in the known universe, and I'm a specialist in Earth's animals and I would definitely say that you're a human."

"Maybe he is from somewhere, outside the 'known universe,'" Jumba suggested, to which Pleakley replied as if it were preposterous.

_Do I have to leave here now? _Sora wondered while looking down at the sand under his legs. _These monsters are here, but there are people to fight them here as well. They don't need me. Maybe, she doesn't either. I told her I'd come back, promised her, but if that's all that's keeping me here and she isn't… I'm sure she's looking for me though. My other friends too. I'm sure… But, right now I'm all alone. _

"Sora and Stitch, not friends," Stitch said. Sora rose his head up at the blue creature who spoke up again after he and Lilo were watching Sora stare at the floor sadly like that for too long. Stitch stared at the boy with darker brown hair right in his yellow eyes that were strange but did not affect how Stitch felt. "Ohana," Stitch said, reaching out and putting a hand on Sora's shoulder.

Sora looked at Stitch with a confused look, and he rose up his right hand and rubbed his eyes while the three behind him stared at Stitch in surprise or even shock. Lilo turned to Stitch in a moment of surprise too before smiling at his look and turning back to Sora with the same one. "What does, that mean?" Sora asked slowly, in a voice showing the older people behind him that he was not feeling alright.

Stitch squeezed his hand on Sora's shoulder and continued, "Ohana, means family."

"And family means," Lilo started too, while holding out a hand and putting it on Sora's other shoulder. "Nobody gets left behind, or forgotten." Sora looked at the small girl in front of him on his left and then back at Stitch's face, and he lifted the corners of his lips into a smile and started laughing. He had to rub his eyes again, and Lilo continued while leaning forward, "I mean it! Even if you can't remember, I'm sure your family still remembers you too. And we won't-"

"I get it," Sora said, lowering his arm and smiling genuinely at Lilo. He pushed his hands down on the floor and started standing up. He looked down at Stitch's face and repeated, "Ohana." Stitch nodded at him, and Sora took in a deep breath while feeling a warmth in his heart that was nice and relaxed him. Yet he also felt strangely, as if he were losing power too. _That's weird. Is it because, I was sad? I used the power of darkness and now, dark feelings make me stronger? But, I don't need it. _Sora kept smiling and he pushed those dark feelings down while looking around at the others with him. _My friends are- _

**"My friends are my power!" **Sora stumbled backwards and he rose a hand up to his head as he heard himself shouting that at someone. He clenched his eyes shut and saw a dark castle, himself but younger holding up a Keyblade and fighting someone with silver hair which made his eyes snap open wide again. "I, remember-"

"You remember?!" Lilo exclaimed in surprise. She was smiling but also feeling a bit nervous like that would mean he would leave, but Sora looked down at her and then shook his head at her look.

"Not everything, just… something. I think it's because, of you." He said it and looked at the two in front of him, then he turned and looked at Nani too. "Do you mind, if we kept-"

"Let's keep the day rolling," Nani suggested, smiling at the boy who she had just watched get so uplifted from what her sister and Stitch told him. "If it's jogging your memories, then that was the whole point of coming out here in the first place, right?"

"I'm confused," Pleakley started while raising a hand. "What are we doing?"

"Who's up for some surfing?" Lilo suggested excitedly, glad that instead of saying he was leaving, Sora asked to spend more time just hanging out with them.

"Surfing!" Stitch exclaimed in agreement.

"I don't know… well, I don't think I've ever surfed before," Sora started hesitantly. He laughed and did not stay too reluctant for long as the others said they would teach him, and Nani left to go get her boyfriend David while leaving Jumba and Pleakley to watch them.

Sora headed for the water down in only his bathing suit with Lilo and Stitch and three surfboards between them. He lagged a little behind the other two for a second right as they were getting in the water. _I should probably be looking for something, someone… I can wait though. I'm enjoying this, and- and I'll probably have to use the darkness again, if I'm going to leave this world and check another one for her. I can only assume, that if this was the right world the darkness would have sent me right to her. I can't search everywhere here, but I'm probably right where I need to be. Stitch was here after all! Someone I knew, was the person I fell right in front of. It can't be coincidence. _

_ So maybe it was just because I knew Stitch, or maybe it's because there's something I need to do here. Either way, it can't hurt staying here with them for a little while longer._

* * *

"So Sora," David started slowly, sitting across the table from the teenager who was chowing down with the rest of them at dinner. "Nani tells me, your arm is feeling better?"

Nani shot David a look showing she did not want him talking about the stuff they had talked about out loud with the others. He shrugged though only half-apologetically at her while looking back at Sora who glanced at his right bicep and kept chewing with a semi-thoughtful look on his own face. "I guess," Sora replied after gulping down another large mouthful. "I think it's almost healed up," he added.

"Really?" David pulled back and asked. Sora looked at him in confusion, and David leaned back forward and said, "I wrapped that myself. It was really deep man! And you looked like you lost a lot of blood, but you're not pale or anything. I heard you've been running around all day actually."

"Yeah," Sora said slowly. "I guess. It's just, I don't know… how long it should take, to get better from something like that," he said it in an apologetic tone like he had done something wrong by getting better faster than what was considered normal.

David lowered his bottom lip at that response, then he started laughing after a second. "Well that's weird," he said, and Sora laughed too as apparently the guy was not judging him for it. "So you still haven't gotten any memories back, huh? What are you going to do now then?"

"Hey!" Lilo shouted down the table at David.

Sora turned right and looked past Stitch who also bared his teeth at David in a way that made the man pull back and throw his arms up defensively. "Not that, you have to leave or anything," David countered himself while looking back at Sora.

"I think it's fine if, he spends another night at our place," Nani said, giving up on it reluctantly even though no one had even asked her yet. Stitch and Lilo both looked really happy about it though, and Jumba rubbed his hands together below the table while no one was watching.

"Thanks Nani," Sora said, though he looked away from the table at the restaurant David worked at after he said it. There were not too many people there which was how David could get on a break and come sit with them, but Sora was not looking at the other people there at the outdoors restaurant. He just looked away and his eyes lowered down a bit, _I should really be getting going though. Those monsters keep popping up, and the others say it's been happening more frequently today than before. The only difference between today and other days though, is that I'm here. So what if it's me? Am I drawing those monsters here? The, Heartless?_

"You can stay in Lilo's room tonight," Nani started, and Sora turned back to the woman who had been looking at him sadly there for a moment before deciding to shift his mind off whatever he was thinking of. "She's fine on the couch-"

"Hey!"

The table got louder and Sora got back into the conversation with the others. He pushed thoughts of the Heartless back in his mind since he had not seen them for a little while now, so he was hoping maybe they would be gone for the night. As they were nearing the end of dinner, Sora glanced towards the direction of the water and the beach. He thought about the big guy he had seen earlier who had run off for his "ship" which had Sora thinking about certain possibilities. "That guy I helped out before. He was an alien too, right?" Sora looked down the table to his right past Lilo and Stitch.

"That was Captain Gantu!" Pleakley called back to the spiky-haired boy. "He's really mean-"

"And ugly!" Jumba added which got a laugh out of David.

"But, wasn't he fighting the Heartless with you?" Sora asked the other aliens in some confusion.

Jumba and Pleakley looked at each other, then Jumba turned away with a humph while the skinnier alien faced back Sora's way. "Yeah, he was! We ran into him while looking for more of those creatures, though we didn't know how many different types there were!"

"Are there more than just those two?" Lilo wondered, as they had still only seen more of the Shadows and Sandnadoes through the rest of the day since the beach.

"Well, we did run into one other kind," Jumba started. "Back around Gantu's ship. They were much bigger!" He pulled his big hands apart over the table to show off the size, and he added, "And stronger. We all had to run but they did not follow us far."

"Wonder why," David said, mainly to himself though Sora did look across the table at him and then hum to himself afterwards.

"Well I hope he's alright," Sora said after thinking about it for a minute and not coming up with anything. "If they were too strong for all of you, I hope he didn't get into something he couldn't handle all on his own."

"I'm sure he's fine," Pleakley said, waving a green hand Sora's way and saying it in such a carefree tone that Sora did feel reassured by it. "He was a captain of the Galactic Armada!"

"The Big Dummy's always fine," Lilo grumbled. "And he's always stomping around and making a mess…"

Across the island, hidden in some trees not far from the shoreline was Captain Gantu's ship. "Hey hey, Gantu!" Reuben stumbled away farther from the ship as the giant came flying out down the ramp and skidding across the floor. "I thought you said you had this!" The small yellow experiment stepped backwards and leaned against a tree, and he lifted up his sandwich and took another bite while watching his boss push his huge muscular arms down on the floor below him to struggle to get up.

"This ship is my home!" Gantu yelled, and he curled his right hand into a fist and slammed it down. Reuben lost his small smile and lowered his sandwich too with a surprised look on his face. Experiment 625, Reuben, turned back to the ship and his eyes widened at the sight of the figure walking up to the top of the ramp between two fat Heartless. The Large Bodies stood still at his sides, then they stayed guarding the entrance to the ship as the figure cloaked in black started down the ramp. Gantu glared up at the man and he pushed his fist down harder to get up to one shaky foot while on his other knee. "And I won't let you have it that easily-"

"Your ship has some nice cloaking, and I need a place to lay low for," the guy in the dark cloak lifted his right arm as if looking at a watch even though his long black sleeve covered his whole arm. His face was covered by the shadows of his hood, though he lifted his head after looking down at his watch and the other two could see a smirk on the bottom half that became illuminated by the moonlight for a second. "Another day or so. I'd prefer it if we didn't have to fight… but you know, I'm actually _glad_ you came back."

Reuben's stomach rumbled and he dropped his sandwich. "Hey Gantu," Reuben leaned forward off the tree and started walking towards his boss. "I think we should-"

Five black circles appeared on the ground in front of Reuben and released dark Shadows that glared at him through their yellow beady eyes. Gantu's eyes darted over towards his henchman and then glared harshly back at the man on the ramp walking towards him. He rose his other foot, but as he was standing back to full height, the short man who tossed him from his ship rose his hand from a distance and formed a sphere of black with a dark purple core in the center of it in front of his palm.

Reuben and Gantu both stared at the sphere of darkness with growing eyes. Reuben was fast, and he darted towards Gantu right between two Shadows which had the man in the cloak looking over in surprise at the experiment's speed. It was still not enough though, and the dark sphere slammed into Gantu and threw him backwards where he rolled back out of the trees into the treeline between the forest and the ocean. He stopped rolling on his back, and he gasped while looking up at the clear sky above full of bright stars and a full moon. "What's- this feeling…"

"Gantu. Hey Gantu! Get up, we've got to get out… hey, hey what's wrong with you?"

A low but somewhat high-pitched voice spoke up behind them, "So much darkness. Anger, hate, depression? A feeling of, belittlement." Reuben spun his head and looked towards the five and a half foot tall figure in a black hood who was slowly walking towards him, with all the Heartless moving forward only once he walked past them to keep him in the front. "An inferiority complex, bested by those weaker than you time and time again, you have to wonder if maybe you're just weaker than them. Even with such a large body, big muscles, you're just so _weak._"

Reuben turned his head back and stepped away from Gantu while the dark lines that were coming out of his body started getting thicker and rising higher. Purple wisps pulled off of his skin and through his black uniform, a black uniform that was spreading out somehow and covering up more of his gray skin and up over his face too to give him a mask. "What are you doing to him?" Reuben spun and called at the dark figure who looked closer at the yellow creature for the first time. The usually lazy experiment lifted up his claws and got an angrier look on his own face, but the cloaked figure looked from him to the bigger alien that the creature was standing in front of, and he shook his head as he had nothing he wanted from it.

"Take care of that thing," the hooded figure said, pointing over at Reuben and making the Heartless behind him run forward.

Reuben got a bit of a nervous look on his face, but he grinned as he felt the big footsteps behind him. "You ready to run back there? I thought you was out for the count or-" Reuben turned his head as he saw the shadow descending, and his eyes opened huge at the glowing white ones coming out of that dark mask. "YO!"

* * *

_Ohana_. _"I know you will!" Family. Donald and Goofy. "…I promise!" The Heartless. The guy with one eye- not Pleakley, but… cloak guy. I'll just call him cloak guy. And there's the guy with silver hair, I think he's my friend too. I want to find them. I have to warn them, if they don't know about the World Eater. The- cloak guy said it just woke up, so I might be the only one who's seen it. The world it got last time wasn't important, but if it comes for a world like this. A world with so many people on it…_

_ I won't let that happen._

Sora got up in the Pelekai house and started a day similar to the last one. He had things he wanted to do that day, but he decided early on to just make sure that there was not a different reason that the Heartless were there other than himself. At least, that was what he told himself he was doing when Lilo told him that they were going to go surfing again and this time with David who was much better than the rest of them.

They ate breakfast and gathered up their surfboards and bathing suits to go down to the beach. Jumba asked Sora while the others were getting ready if he could see his Keyblade for a moment, but after Sora gave it to him, the weapon re-materialized in his own hand to both of their surprise. Sora shrugged at the mad scientist before running off when Lilo told him it was time to go, and Jumba sighed in defeat back behind him at the loss of what could have been a great experiment. Jumba came running for the front door the same as everyone else in the house though at the shout that came from the front door when they stepped outside.

"Reuben!" Lilo called out, dropping down and catching the yellow experiment who was wobbly on his feet and looked to just barely make it there.

Stitch and Sora continued to battle the Heartless that had come to the front door with the yellow creature, and Jumba came out before getting enraged at the sight of his experiment's condition and pulling out the "big guns" that he decimated some of the fat Heartless that were there with. He had spent the entire night coming up with the new weapon to fight them, and he humphed in a satisfied way after he destroyed them, even if Nani did yell at him for leaving a crater in her front lawn.

_A broken window, craters, these things have to leave us alone already!_ Nani thought it exasperatedly but she was not too focused on the property damage at the moment. She looked down in a worried way at the experiment that she had just expected was fine because Reuben was supposed to be as strong as Stitch with his only weakness being his laziness. "Is he alright?" Nani asked, turning to the experiment's creator when Reuben finally collapsed unconscious.

"It seems, he has taken very serious damage," Jumba said. He picked Reuben up and headed back inside, "I will fix him up good as new though! It is nothing I cannot handle. Go, I will catch up with you later."

"Doesn't really feel like a beach day anymore," Lilo mumbled to herself sadly while watching Jumba go back inside with Reuben. She turned to Stitch and had a worried look on her face, "I didn't think the Heartless could hurt even you, Stitch."

"Heartless, very strong," Stitch said with a nod, but he smiled and then pointed a hand at Sora. "We are stronger."

Sora smiled too when Lilo looked to him, as he could see she needed it. "That's right. We'll keep kicking their butts as much as we have to."

Lilo nodded and agreed with the other two. They headed down to the beach as a group and told David what they had run into back at the house, but David sounded surprised and told them he had not seen any of those creatures since the afternoon before. He added that most other people he had talked to had seen a lot less of them too, which brought up the mood a lot and let them all enjoy the morning surfing without worrying about much.

When they got out of the water, Sora shook his head around and Lilo pulled back at the dog-like action. "Your hair's a mess!" Lilo called at the boy who had long spikes of hair that splashed water everywhere when he shook it like that. "You know what you need? A haircut!"

"Haircut?" Sora wondered, and he tilted his head to the side again in confusion.

Lilo, Nani, and David all gawked at him. Pleakley was nearby though and the alien with one eye exclaimed in shock, "You've never gotten a haircut?!" The others all looked to him with eyebrows raised. Pleakley had an antennae sticking off the top of his head but no hair to speak of, and he brought his hands up and grabbed his head with an embarrassed look at their staring. "I get them all the time! They almost never realize it's a wig I'm wearing!"

"Sure," Sora finally said after he started laughing with the others. "Why not? I'll, get one." _It doesn't even sound familiar. Maybe I'll recognize it once it's happening. Maybe I even usually have short hair and it only got all spiky like this because I haven't cut it- and maybe seeing it short will jog a bunch of memories!_

Thirty minutes later, Sora was spun in a barber's chair to face the mirror while Lilo and Stitch stood on his sides. Sora gawked at the hairstyle he was just given after seeing so much hair fall to his sides. And after all of that, Lilo and Stitch shook their heads 'no' at the look which got Sora spun back around for another go. This would go on for three more tries until he got turned around and his expression turned into a more mild and pleased surprise. "This is…" he started.

Lilo looked over at Stitch with a smile on her face, and Stitch gave her a thumbs up back. Sora's hair was still spiky, but it was short now with less spikes in total but still a couple pointing down over his forehead, some taller ones over the top of his head while most of the rest were low and short around it. He had a couple pointing out to the sides, and the hairdresser behind him mentioned how his hair was oddly naturally that spiky which she had never seen before. The other styles she had tried it in were all using gel while this was just a normal look for him with shorter hair though pushed down a bit in certain areas. "It's great," Sora told the woman.

"That's good to hear. Alright, so that will be twenty-"

"I have it," Lilo said quickly.

Sora looked back at the girl, and then to the woman she was paying which had him jumping up fast. "Oh my- money? Payment… I've been- you guys have been giving me food and-"

"You even forgot what money was, huh?" Lilo asked the older boy while the barber just got a baffled expression at their conversation.

"Not really," Sora started while walking for the door with the other two. "I guess, I just sort of… I don't know. It's like the idea of it had just slipped my mind until now. I think I saw Nani paying for my ice cream and David got dinner last night… I've seen it since, but I just didn't pick up on what it was…" Sora rubbed his forehead and then ran his hand up through his shorter dark brown hair. _Are there other small things? I thought it was just who I was, where I came from, names and stuff. The small stuff I thought I remembered, but it's not like I really just "remembered" money either. It's more like, I knew it existed but I didn't, I couldn't piece together that because I was eating with them they were paying for me, but they just paid for me to get my hair cut. They're really, taking care of me. Nani works hard for her money, David too, and no one even mentioned it like it was a problem. I shouldn't be here. I'm… imposing. That's it. I'm being a burden. I should have-_

"So what do you guys want to do now?" Lilo asked, stopping on the sidewalk and leaning against a bench. "Oh! Why don't we go check out Gantu's ship?"

"Huh?" Sora wondered. He had thought they told him everything was going to be alright with Gantu, so even though there was something he wanted to check out with the ship he did not know why Lilo would bring it up.

"Reuben stays there with Gantu," Lilo explained. "So if something happened to him, maybe Gantu knows. Or maybe something happened at the ship last night."

"Hmmm," Stitch hummed and started scratching under his furry blue chin.

"I don't know," Sora began in a hesitant tone. "I don't think Nani would like it if we went there, especially if there _is_ something going-"

"Nani's at work and won't see us for _hours_!" Lilo countered and stretched out 'hours' in a long way. "We can definitely make it back before she even notices we're gone. Plus, don't you want to see? Maybe there're some answers as to what's going on with you, if we can figure out what's going on with the Heartless!" Lilo called it out like it was a great idea, even though she only came up with it at first to convince Sora.

_I know what she's doing… but she's right. Stitch says I fight the Heartless, so I should go fight the Heartless. If that's my job? Or just, because they're hurting people like Lilo and her ohana. They've been good to me. I have no idea where I am or who I am, but these people are being good to me. _"If that's what you think we should do," Sora started, and he smiled at the girl who looked at him with big eyes at the way he started that. "Then let's do it."

_If I do have to leave, I want to make this world safer first._

Back at the Pelekai house, Reuben moaned and opened up his eyes to see Jumba leaning his face down over his. "Whoa, Jumba? Jumba!" Reuben snapped up and he was panting hard as he did.

"Easy there, 625," Jumba began, patting a hand on the back of his small yellow experiment. "You took extensive damage. I do not know how though. Explain to me what could have-"

"Gantu! Gantu man," Reuben started shaking his head while Jumba got a really confused look on his face. "He went completely nuts! That guy in the black cloak did something to him, turned him totally bonkers!"

Jumba stood up and he stared down at his experiment with his breath speeding up and a look of hesitant worry covering over his face. "A black cloak, you say? It wouldn't happen," Jumba turned and walked over to something he had taken off of the drying rack when he was all alone. "To look like-"

"That's the one!" Reuben exclaimed. "The exact thing! What happened? Did you get the guy?"

"No," Jumba began. _It has to be someone else. Sora was here all night, unless… no, no he was here! And 626 knows- but there could be others like him. And without his memory, who is to say that those in his group are not actually…_

"It was crazy, Jumba. The guy in the cloak took over our ship. He beat up Gantu and was controlling all those, those things! Man, am I tired… but wait," Reuben shook his head as he was lazing back into the bed he was laying on. "Gantu. It's Gantu, he's not right."

"What do you mean?" Jumba asked. _I have a bad feeling about this._

"I don't know what that guy did to him, but he doesn't know who he is. He's gone nuts and he's super strong and… and he attacked me," Reuben looked down and Jumba's eyes grew huge at the sad, betrayed look on the small carefree creature's face. Reuben closed his eyes and he said in a softer voice, "It was… so dark…"

* * *

**A/N Thanks for reading. Sora meets Stitch and learns a bit about himself, namely his name. He gets a haircut and they've decided to go see how Gantu's doing after Reuben gets attacked. Gantu's been corrupted, suspicion of Sora is bouncing around, and he's still trying to remember who he is though he's accepted the world he's on is not his own. Who's the guy in the dark cloak? What awaits Sora, Lilo, and Stitch back at Gantu's ship? Find out next time!**

KingJGamer chapter 3 . Feb 17

So wait, does Stitch know who Sora is because of the Kingdom Hearts summons and links?

**Yeah, so with this I kind of took some liberty with what Stitch knows and how well he knows Sora. Based on what we saw in KHII with the Lion King world and Mulan's world, Sora, Donald, and Goofy all know the summons' characters pretty well. Mushu and Simba were summons in the first game but in the second one when you go to see them for the first time in their worlds, the two of them treat you like you're already close friends having fought the Heartless together a bunch. So I figured Stitch would be the same, a friend who's had more interaction with Sora and crew than we've seen and is actually friends with him. Anyway thanks for the review! And thanks all you guys for reviewing and reading this story! 'Til next time!**


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